The present invention relates to an automobile airbag door that is formed by bonding a cover member onto a base member and constitutes a part of an automobile instrument panel.
A front passenger seat airbag apparatus has an airbag door. The airbag door is a part of an instrument panel, which is formed by bonding a cover member onto a base member. This type of airbag door has a door base member forming a part of the base member and a door cover member forming a part of the cover member. A tear line is formed in each of the door base member and the door cover member. When an automobile received an impact due to a front end collision, the front passenger seat airbag apparatus is activated. This deploys and inflates the airbag, so that the airbag applies pressing force to the airbag door. Accordingly, the door base member and the door cover member are torn along the tear line to open the airbag door. The airbag passes through the open airbag door and is deployed and inflated between the instrument panel and an occupant seated in the front passenger seat. The deployed and inflated airbag reduces the impact applied to the occupant.
In recent years, there has been a demand for improvement of the appearance of interior parts, in addition to a demand for reduction of the number of manufacturing steps and the costs for forming tear lines. In this respect, it has been proposed to eliminate the tear line from door cover members. Even in this case, the door cover member needs to be torn together with the door base member when the airbag is deployed and inflated.
To meet such a need, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-126038 discloses an automobile airbag door in which the bond strength of a door base member and a door cover member is set to such a value that when the door base member is torn, the door cover member does not peel off the door base member. That is, when the door base member is torn along the tear line by being pressed by the airbag, the door cover member is easily torn because the door cover member is hard to peel off the door base member. However, no consideration is given to the possibility of allowing the door cover member to be torn along the tear line of the door base member.